Masha Hamilton
About Author
Masha Hamilton is the author of five novels: Staircase of a Thousand Steps, (2001) a Booksense pick by independent booksellers and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers sRead More
Masha Hamilton is the author of five novels: Staircase of a Thousand Steps, (2001) a Booksense pick by independent booksellers and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection; The Distance Between Us, (2004) named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal, The Camel Bookmobile, (2007) also a Booksense pick, and 31 Hours, named by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009. Her latest novel, What Changes Everything, comes out in May 2013.
Currently serving as the Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, she worked as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press for five years in the Middle East, where she covered the intefadeh, the peace process and the partial Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. She also spent five years in Moscow, where she was a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a newspaper column, “Postcard from Moscow,†and reported for NBC/Mutual Radio. She reported from Afghanistan in 2004 and in 2006, she traveled in Kenya to research The Camel Bookmobile and to interview street kids in Nairobi and drought and famine victims in the isolated northeast.
She has founded two non-profits, the Camel Book Drive to supply books to children in northeastern Kenya, and the Afghan Womens Writing Project, to support the voices of Afghan women. A Brown University graduate, she has been awarded fiction fellowships from Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She has taught for Gotham Writers’ Workshop, at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and in numerous other settings. She is a licensed shiatsu practitioner and is currently studying nuad phaen boran, Thai traditional massage.Read Less
Currently serving as the Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, she worked as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press for five years in the Middle East, where she covered the intefadeh, the peace process and the partial Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. She also spent five years in Moscow, where she was a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a newspaper column, “Postcard from Moscow,†and reported for NBC/Mutual Radio. She reported from Afghanistan in 2004 and in 2006, she traveled in Kenya to research The Camel Bookmobile and to interview street kids in Nairobi and drought and famine victims in the isolated northeast.
She has founded two non-profits, the Camel Book Drive to supply books to children in northeastern Kenya, and the Afghan Womens Writing Project, to support the voices of Afghan women. A Brown University graduate, she has been awarded fiction fellowships from Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She has taught for Gotham Writers’ Workshop, at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and in numerous other settings. She is a licensed shiatsu practitioner and is currently studying nuad phaen boran, Thai traditional massage.Read Less
